Bald Fact: Molecular Signal, New Hope for Hair Growth?

According to an article published in Cell, molecular signals that trigger hair growth, which may lead to effective bald and hair loss treatment, have been discovered by scientists from Yale University.  The research identified the molecular signals from stem cells inside the skin's fatty layer of the laboratory mice and revealed that these cells were necessary to bring about hair growth.

"If we can get these fat cells in the skin to talk to the dormant stem cells at the base of hair follicles, we might be able to get hair to grow again."
said Valerie Horsley, assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and senior author of the paper.

Men with male pattern baldness still have stem cells in follicle roots, the researchers explain. However, they have lost the ability to trigger hair re-growth. Unfortunately, it has not been clear yet the source of those signal, though the scientist have known that these stem cells within the follicle need signals from somewhere within the skin to start growing hair.

Horsley and team remarked that a layer of fat in the scalp that comprises most of the skin's thickness shrinks when hair dies. Adipogenesis, the fat layer expands in a process will begin when hair starts to grow. To regenerate hair in mice, adipose precursor cells, types of stem cells involved in creating new fat cells, were needed. The scientists also found that these cells produce PDGF (platelet derived growth factors), a necessary molecules types needed to promote hair growth.

The scientists are keeping on researches to identify what other signals the adipose precursor stem cells produce that might be necessary in regulating hair growth and to test that these signals can give the result in human the same way they affected the lab mice or not.

Keep hope, althouh this molecular signals and the the new gene in hair loss discovery cannot be real in the market.  They are another possibilities of hair loss solution in the near future.